Saturday Evening

A day off, a day of rest.

I cleaned the house, it took about 6 hours. There was a lot of dog hair. I did 4 loads of washing. I put 6 bags of 'sale' tomatoes and some peppers and onions into the oven and slow baked them to make enough pasta sauce for a week. I took the slow cooker out of storage, it's that time of the year already. I drilled a hole in the wall to hang a picture but the brick perished so much I didn't risk it. I tore up all the lino in the hall, now that small dog has scratched a hole in it. I was surprised that it was bone dry underneath. I screwed a long brush-like draught excluder to the bottom of the front door. I planted 100 purple alliums in the front garden, the last 20 were the hardest. They were quite large bulbs and the tool I have for making holes quite small - so I had the genius idea of dragging 4 bags of topsoil from the back garden and covered the whole front with another couple of inches to make sure they got a good covering. I re-planted some ornamental cordelines into large galvanised metal planters for the back patio. They are now too heavy to move. The compost bin is now full. I cleaned the venetian blind in the bathroom, it was coated with talcum powder. I changed the covers on the dog beds. I bought a newspaper for the first time in years. It was the Guardian, by a complete fluke - I found an article about people who had bought a piece of art from an unknown only to find them to become famous  in this case the artist was Banksy. The article was only written because I connected the writer (Chris) with the interviewee (Amanda), who I went to school with and who has a house full of Banksy's from her time living in Bristol. They have come in very useful when she's needed a new roof (thatched  cottage) or hot water boiler. I've walked the dogs 3 times, been to the supermarket and eaten lunch. I put a load of clothes away and changed the bed, and opened up a crate in the loft and took out a load of vintage station clocks I'd been storing away and put them up on the living room wall. I now have about 30 clocks hanging up, none of them tell the right time. I did a bit of work research, read a load of articles on the Internet, mostly about politics, and tried to listen to the radio, but it was annoying. I had an email exchange (it's Saturday) with the former assistant of someone I work with who connected me with someone who wants some branding work. I watched Dr Who. It wasn't very good. I've drunk a lot of tea.

Tomorrow I have to work, I need to talk to a client tomorrow night to go through what I've managed to do on Sunday and decide if I need to be in Brighton on Monday (and Wednesday). I need to think about paying bills, paying debts, find out if the washing machine is leaking or it's just a pipe, and buy toothpaste.

I actually quite enjoyed myself and feel oddly rested. Might watch a film.


Edit: I almost forgot - I took responsibility for my health and alleviated some physical distress by syringing my own ears. I didn't enjoy the experience, but a least I wasn't a burden on the NHS, who seem to be so bad at budgeting that I probably saved them enough money to buy an incubator.